As a follow-up on our Nature Climate Change study (Brüggemann et al. 2017) called “The appeasement effect of a United Nations climate summit on the German public”, we have now published a working paper tracing changes in public attitudes and behavioral intentions over a longer period of time.

The paper compares data from our 2015, 2018 and 2019 Down to Earth surveys while also linking changes in public opinion to the media coverage on climate change.

During my research stay in Stellenbosch, South Africa, I came across an interesting arts project on climate change, which was installed during the cultural festival “Woordfees”.

A note on the wall invites onlookers to participate: to illustrate or write about what or who they would miss the most if our climate completely collapsed. Another note asked to describe fond memories of nature.

All around, people posted little notes and drawings, all of which gave interesting insights into their perceptions of climate change, especially their fears.

Since the “Food project” has now brought its first stage to a close, it is time to present some preliminary findings.

With the funding provided by KNU, we have conducted a thorough interdisciplinary literature review and several pilot studies: a representative survey in sociology, experiments in economics, a qualitative and an automated content analysis in journalism studies, an analysis of social media content in communication studies, a metaphor analysis in linguistics, and narrative interviews in geography.

In a comment for the Media Watch Blog, Michael Brüggemann explains why the imagination of positive climate futures, in terms of specific technical and social innovations, is vital for sustainable engagement against climate change. Read the blog post (in German) here.